http://filehoard.com/ en Sun, 20 May 2012 09:22:57 GMT vBulletin 60 http://filehoard.com/images/styles/filehoard/misc/rss.png http://filehoard.com/ http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124599-VIDEO-Facebook-shares-see-modest-debut?goto=newpost Sat, 19 May 2012 10:06:34 GMT Facebook shares ended their first day of trading at $38.23, barely above the company's initial pricing of $38.

More... ]]> techzone porchio http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124599-VIDEO-Facebook-shares-see-modest-debut http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124598-Inside-Halden-the-most-humane-prison-in-the-world?goto=newpost Sat, 19 May 2012 10:06:34 GMT Image:...
Amelia Gentleman visits Halden, the high-security jail in Norway where every cell has a flatscreen TV, an en-suite shower and fluffy, white towels

Halden prison smells of freshly brewed coffee. It hits you in the workshop areas, lingers in the games rooms and in the communal apartment-style areas where prisoners live together in groups of eight. This much coffee makes you hungry, so a couple of hours after lunch the guards on Unit A (a quiet, separated wing where sex offenders are held for their own protection) bring inmates a tall stack of steaming, heart-shaped waffles and pots of jam, which they set down on a checked tablecloth and eat together, whiling away the afternoon.

The other remarkable thing is how quiet the prison is. There isn't any of the enraged, persistent banging of doors you hear in British prisons, not least because the prisoners are not locked up much during the day. The governor, Are Høidal, is surprised when I ask about figures for prisoner attacks on guards, staff hospitalisations, guard restraints on prisoners, or prisoner-on-prisoner assaults. I explain that British prisons are required to log this data, and that the last prison I visited had a problem with prisoners melting screws into plastic pens, to use as stabbing weapons; he looks startled, says there isn't much violence here and he can't remember the last time there was a fight.

Halden is one of Norway's highest-security jails, holding rapists, murderers and paedophiles. Since it opened two years ago, at a cost of 1.3bn Norwegian kroner (£138m), it has acquired a reputation as the world's most humane prison. It is the flagship of the Norwegian justice system, where the focus is on rehabilitation rather than punishment.

There was early speculation that Anders Breivik, currently on trial in Oslo for the murder of 77 people, might end up here, given that there are few high-security options across Norway, but that now looks unlikely, at least for the first chunk of his sentence. If he is judged to be sane, he will probably remain in isolation in the Ila prison where he is currently being held, a former Nazi concentration camp with a less utopian vision. However, the underlying ethos of Halden prison gives an insight into Norwegian attitudes towards justice, one that is under scrutiny as the country assesses how to deal with Breivik.

When Halden opened, it attracted attention globally for its design and its relative splendour. Set in a forest, the prison blocks are a model of minimalist chic. Høidal lifts down from his office wall a framed award for best interior design, a prize given in recognition of the stylishness of the white laminated tables, tangerine leather sofas and elegant, skinny chairs dotted all over the place. At times, the environment feels more Scandinavian boutique hotel than class A prison.

The hotel comparison comes up frequently. Høidal is just back from visiting a British prison and had to stay a night in a hotel off Oxford Street. Happily for the hotel, he can't remember the name, but he noticed his room was certainly smaller and probably less nice than the cells in Halden. Every Halden cell has a flatscreen television, its own toilet (which, unlike standard UK prison cells, also has a door) and a shower, which comes with large, soft, white towels. Prisoners have their own fridges, cupboards and desks in bright new pine, white magnetic pinboards and huge, unbarred windows overlooking mossy forest scenery.

"There was much focus on the design," Høidal says. "We wanted it to be light and positive."

Obviously the hotel comparison is a stupid one, since the problem with being in prison, unlike staying in a hotel, is that you cannot leave. Even if the prison compound has more in common with a modern, rural university campus, with young and enthusiastic staff (who push themselves around the compound on fashionable, silver two-wheel scooters), the key point about it is that hidden behind the silver birch trees is a thick, tall concrete wall, impossible to scale.

Given the constraints of needing to keep 245 high-risk people incarcerated, creating an environment that was as unprisonlike as possible was a priority for Høidal and the prison's architects. "The architecture is not like other prisons," Høidal says. "We felt it shouldn't look like a prison. We wanted to create normality. If you can't see the wall, this could be anything, anywhere. The life behind the walls should be as much like life outside the walls as possible."

This principle is governed in part by a key feature of the Norwegian sentencing system, which has no life sentences and stipulates a maximum term of 21 years.

"Everyone who is imprisoned inside Norwegian prisons will be released – maybe not Breivik, but everyone else will go back to society. We look at what kind of neighbour you want to have when they come out. If you stay in a box for a few years, then you are not a good person when you come out. If you treat them hard… well, we don't think that treating them hard will make them a better man. We don't think about revenge in the Norwegian prison system. We have much more focus on rehabilitation. It is a long time since we had fights between inmates. It is this building that makes softer people."

Prisoners are unlocked at 7.30am and locked up for the night at 8.30pm. During the day they are encouraged to attend work and educational activities, with a daily payment of 53 kroner (£5.60) for those who leave their cell. "If you have very few activities, your prisoners become more aggressive," Høidal says. "If they are sitting all day, I don't think that is so good for a person. If they are busy, then they are happier. We try not to let them get institutionalised."

The role of the prison guard is very different from that in the UK. While officers in Britain get a few weeks' training, Norwegians will have completed a two-year university course, with an emphasis on human rights, ethics and the law. At Halden there are 340 staff members (including teachers and healthcare workers) to the 245 male inmates. Staff are encouraged to mingle with inmates, talking to them, counselling them, working with them to combat their criminality. A great deal of attention is given to making sure people have homes and jobs to go to when they leave, and that family ties are maintained. (There is a well-stocked chalet-style house for prisoners to receive overnight visits from their families.) "We have many more prison officers than prisoners. They are talking about why they are here, what problems got them into this criminality. Our role is to help them and to guard them. The prison governor role in Norway is unique. They are meant to be coach, motivator, a role model for the inmates."

The regime is expensive – approximately 3,000 kroner (£320) a night, compared with around 2,000 (£213) at the more basic, older Norwegian institutions, such as the Oslo prison where inmates are often locked up for 23 out of 24 hours, but it is cheaper than Ila, where the guard count is higher and the cost 4,000 kroner (£426) a night. A year in Halden costs the state around £116,000, while the average cost of a place in the UK is £45,000.

Cost is only one of the reasons prison reformers in the UK don't think there's any prospect of the Halden model being adopted here. We have double the number of prisoners that Norway has (around 140 per 100,000 in England and Wales, to Norway's 74.8), and having a smaller prison population makes things simpler for the Norwegian state. Halden is so new, there are no figures yet for how swiftly and frequently prisoners drift back into prison after their release, but nationwide Norway has one of the lowest recidivism rates in Europe, just 20% after two years, compared with around 50% in England. Partly that's down to the prison system, but it's also the result of a much better welfare system. There is little popular appetite for softening the prison regime in this country. The justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, may have stated, "It is just very, very bad value for taxpayers' money to keep warehousing them in overcrowded prisons where most of them get toughened up", but his early commitment to tackling rising prison numbers was not well-received.

The large amount of money and thought lavished on inmates at Halden doesn't stop them (politely) expressing their dislike of the place and their desire to leave as soon as possible. An elderly prisoner, with terminal cancer, serving a long sentence for drug smuggling, is in the craft room, crocheting a toy teddy bear with no enthusiasm for his task. He concedes that Halden smells better than other prisons he has been in, because it doesn't have the mildewed odour of the old buildings, or the deep stench of bodies squeezed together in close confinement. "The only thing that is nice is the building," he says. "People think that you are staying in a five-star hotel, but prison is prison. They lock you up."

Kent, a 43-year-old office manager serving a three-year sentence for a violent attack, is sitting in the prison's mixing studio, where prisoners record music and make a programme that is broadcast monthly by the local radio station. He has formed a band with three other inmates and two guards, and performs regularly for fellow inmates. Leaning back in his swivel chair, sipping at his coffee and fiddling with his red baseball cap, he admits he's enjoying being able to focus on his music, but says, "The Halden prison has been compared to the finest hotel. That's the impression my friends and parents have from reading the papers. It is not true. The real issue is freedom, which is taken away from you. That is the worst thing that can happen to you. When the door slams at night, you're sat there in a small room. That's always a tough time."

He has children aged 10 and 12. "I think about them 24/7. I speak to them three times a week for 30 minutes, but there is so much to say, so much I need to be doing for them. I think I'm never going to commit another crime. Freedom means so much to me."

There is some annoyance from staff at the focus on the buildings, rather than on the principle of rehabilitation that drives the prison. "One politician when it opened said, 'I could live here for a year, no problem.' But he was in the cell for two minutes," says Janne Offerdal, who teaches English to the inmates (mainly to foreign nationals caught smuggling drugs into the country; the Norwegian prisoners all speak impeccable English). "They compare the facilities with the elderly prisons. But if you are building a new building now, you wouldn't build an old one."

Høidal is bemused by the popular fascination with the prisoners' flatscreen TVs, pointing out that it's now impossible to buy the older models. "I don't call the cells luxurious. It's 10 square metres, a toilet, a shower, that's all."

No one is thrilled to arrive here. The reception officer explains that the most positive reaction is one of relief. When they are brought in, "some of them are crying," he says. "They don't know what they're going to do with their dog. There are aggressive people who are high on drugs, or withdrawing from drugs, which is not always easy to deal with. It's only the older guys who've been in other prisons who are happy to be in Halden."

As we walk around the compound, an inmate comes up to ask Høidal, "Can we have a swimming pool?" He laughs, and remembers the shock of a Russian prison governor who visited recently and was horrified to see that the inmates didn't stand to attention when Høidal came past but instead clustered around him, seizing the chance to list their complaints.

There are no plans for a swimming pool, but Høidal does want to make a jogging track through the woods, and a young sports teacher (who is working on specialised programmes for recovering drug addicts) says he hopes to start rock climbing lessons in the summer.

I wonder if it's a good idea to teach inmates how to scale rock faces, but he responds with hurt amazement. "There would be no security risk. I wouldn't be teaching them how to escape." So far there have been no escapes, or attempts.

The sports centre is focused on team sports, especially football. There are a few bits of training equipment, but no weights, because Høidal doesn't approve of them: "I see the negative of focusing too much on muscles. It is a violent thing."

The inmates tell Høidal they're annoyed by recent changes to the routine, but they are respectful when they address him. He listens politely, agrees that in prison minor irritations can become major frustrations, but remarks that people outside the building would laugh at the trivial nature of their complaints.

In the winter, when the compound was covered in snow, one of the inmates went outside and stamped around for a while. Looking out from the staff canteen later, guards noticed he'd written Help Me with his footprints. A UK prisoner might set fire to his cell; even these appeals for attention are done in the most non-aggressive manner.

I see only one piece of prisoner graffiti, a rather half-hearted scribble on an A4 printed notice (to avoid causing permanent damage): "Fuck the rules" (only the pen has stopped working, so all that's really legible is Fuck the r). Otherwise, there is the prison-sanctioned graffiti, the recurring logo of a convict in striped uniform, apparently about to hurl his ball and chain to the wind, which decorates the yard walls and toilet doors, and was commissioned at considerable expense from the Norwegian graffiti artist Dolk, out of the prison's 6m kroner (£640,000) art budget.

Huge, blown-up photographs of daffodils, Parisian street scenes or Moroccan tiles cover the corridors. Høidal doesn't have a clear answer to whether the pictures have a positive effect on inmate behaviour, but says that whenever a state building is opened in Norway, 1% of the construction budget goes on art.

One wild-eyed ex-amphetamine addict slaps Høidal on the back, tells him he is a good man, but says he misses his old prison, Oslo, where he served an earlier sentence. Drugs were more of a problem in that jail, he adds wistfully. Høidal agrees that the style of Halden prison, with the relentless presence of guards wanting to talk and help inmates, does not suit everyone. "Some people don't like them being around all the time. If you want drugs, then you prefer Oslo prison."

Another prisoner, living in the relative seclusion of Unit A, where he is a year into a sentence for sexual abuse of a minor, pays tribute to the humanity of the prison staff (as opposed to that of the fellow prisoners, who, when they found out what he was in prison for, announced they were going to dismember him). "The people who work here don't look down on you," he says. Compared with the 1850s Eidsberg prison, where he was before, Halden is a relief: "Being there and being here, it's like heaven and hell."

Two prison officers are sitting with the eight prisoners on A-block, encouraging them to knit woollen hats. One also has expensive oil canvases for them to experiment with, but there isn't much appetite for either activity, so once the waffles are finished, they return to playing a card game.

The civility between staff and inmates is noticeable everywhere. Information for new inmates is translated into English for those who do not speak Norwegian. The text is apologetic about the possibility that they may have to wait before they are transferred to a cell, and concludes: "We hope you have understanding for any waiting and hope to help you as soon as possible. With best regards, the reception officers."

Maybe I'm not there long enough to sense latent anger or profound despair, but Halden doesn't feel like a place where you have to look over your shoulder. An official in the healthcare division says up to 40% of inmates will be taking sleeping pills, and between 10% and 20% are on anti-depressants, but overall the atmosphere is calm.

Though food is provided by the prison, inmates can buy ingredients to make their own meals. The prison shop has wasabi paste for those who want to make sushi. You can buy garam masala, vanilla pods or halva, and there is prime fillet of beef at 350 kroner (£37) a kilo, which prisoners club together to buy when they want to make a special meal. The most frequently borrowed books in the library are cookbooks. Most prisoners' fridges are full of yoghurt drinks and cheeses; a couple say they've put on weight since they arrived.

At 3pm, a table is set for 10, with white china plates, glasses and white paper napkins, in the drug rehabilitation unit, where Robert, 45 and an ex-addict and dealer, is living. Some prisoners are sitting on the brown woollen sofas watching the communal television. It looks like an advertisement for a family ski-chalet, complete with beautiful forest views. This is the main meal of the day; afterwards, between four and five prisoners will be locked in their cells for an hour to give the prison guards time for a break, then there will be free time until lock-up at 8.30pm.

Occasionally the prisoners talk of the Breivik trial, which is closely followed on television. On the whole they don't believe the liberal regime from which they benefit should be extended to him. "He couldn't stay in a place like this," Robert says. "If I saw him, I would knock him down. I'm a nice prisoner but I would do it and I would brag about it. Everybody wants to take him out."

A fellow inmate, Patrick, serving a 12-year sentence for drug smuggling, was one of two prisoners who organised a prison-wide collection to buy flowers for the victims of Breivik's attack. Everyone gave up their daily wage of 53 kroner (£5.60); even the prime minister was moved by the gesture. "It was horrible, the thing that happened, and we felt helpless," Patrick says. "We wanted to do something. I was surprised that it got so much media attention; I was surprised that people thought, 'You're prisoners, but you are so nice.' We are also human beings. We also have daughters, sisters, children."

Høidal says, with some relief, that if Breivik is ever transferred to Halden, it won't be for at least a decade, by which point he will have retired. Although special arrangements may have to be made for the first stage of Breivik's incarceration, he believes the Norwegian principles of fair and liberal punishment will not be threatened by the atrocity. In the days after the attack, the Norwegian prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, said, "We are shaken but we will not give up our values. Our response is more freedom, more democracy."

Høidal echoes his words: "If it happens again, then maybe we will have another discussion about the system. For the moment, I don't think that this case will change Norwegian thinking."

• Prisons and probation
• UK criminal justice
• Norway
• Europe

Amelia Gentleman

guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds






More... ]]> World News 7N3RB http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124598-Inside-Halden-the-most-humane-prison-in-the-world http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124597-Alec-grows-vulnerable-as-legislators-cut-ties-with-lobbying-network?goto=newpost Sat, 19 May 2012 10:06:34 GMT Image:...
American Legislative Exchange Council under mounting fire after championing causes like Florida's stand-your-ground law

The storm surrounding the American Legislative Exchange Council, Alec, has gathered pace with the fresh defection of 11 Democratic state legislators who have cut off ties with the lobbying network.

The defections bring the number of Democratic representatives in state assemblies across the country who have dumped Alec to 39.

The network, which brings together big corporations with local politicians to forward right-wing and anti-union legislation, has come under sustained pressure from campaigns such as the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

Of the 11 new defectors, eight are Democratic representatives in Pennsylvannia, two in Illinois and one in Iowa.

PCCC's state organising director James Ploeser said the new blow to Alec showed how pressure on the lobbying group was working. "This shows progressives won't tolerate Democrats lending bipartisan cover to Alec and its extreme rightwing, union-busting, voter-suppression agenda," he said.

In recent years Alec has become under mounting fire from progressive groups for what they see as its pernicious influence on the democratic process in the US. The network exists to forward what it calls "model" laws by drafting legislation that it then encourages to spread from state to state across the nation.

Among the highly contentious causes it has championed have been voter-ID laws that make it more difficult for older and black people to register to vote and stand-your-ground laws that give gun owners greater powers that have been condemned by critics as "shoot-first" laws.

The shooting of the unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida, the first state to adopt with Alec's help a stand-your-ground law, led to a powerful backlash against the lobbying network. Battered by the criticism, Alec's chairman David Frizzell last month announced that he was closing some of the network's most controversial legislative areas, or "taskforces".

Despite the strategic retreat, Alec has proven to be vulnerable to the growing opposition to its work. Several large companies, including Coca-Cola, Kraft, Proctor & Gamble, McDonald's, Pepsi and Wendy's as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation all bailed out of the network.

Now pressure is being put on other firms such as AT&T and Johnson & Johnson to follow suit and cancel their membership, with some 88,000 people signing a PCCC petition to that effect.

But the defections amount to a relatively small part of the network's total membership which still includes more than 2,000 republican politicians from all 50 states and about 300 corporations and private-sector bodies.

• Lobbying
• US politics
• United States
• Republicans

Ed Pilkington

guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds






More... ]]> World News 7N3RB http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124597-Alec-grows-vulnerable-as-legislators-cut-ties-with-lobbying-network http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124596-The-G8-and-the-euro-make-this-one-count?goto=newpost Sat, 19 May 2012 10:06:34 GMT Image:...
Europe needs to go in for a proper restructuring of its banking sector along the lines of that executed by Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling in 2008-09

History suggests that the last place one would look for the resolution of a crisis is a summit of world leaders. Yet every so often summits can pave the way to a sea change in policy. The G20 meeting in London presided over by Gordon Brown in the spring of 2009 agreed an impressive-sounding trillion dollar boost to the world economy, but more importantly sealed a deal between the leading powers that they would each spend more until the spectre of recession was warded off. Similarly, the first G20 summit that David Cameron attended as prime minister in 2010 marked the point at which Europe and America parted ways on economic policy.

Two summits, two opposing results, yet each hugely significant. Let us hope that the G8 meeting kicking into gear in Washington this weekend is of a similar rank of importance. Certainly, the situation Mr Obama and his colleagues confront is potentially even more grave than the one they faced in those early months after Lehman Brothers collapsed. However amazing it is to imagine, it is not hyperbolic to say that the euro stands on the verge of a death spiral – and that there are precious few opportunities left to pull it back from the brink. It is not simply the very real prospect of Greece leaving the single currency; it is also the palpably distressed condition of Spanish banks (as suggested by this week's credit-rating downgrade for 16 of them, and the collapses in their share prices), and of so many others across Europe; plus the long-standing issue that Spain and Italy and a number of other countries are now finding it increasingly difficult to get the loans they need from financial markets.

On its own, the ejection from the euro of a country worth only around 2% of the club's GDP would still be shocking and chaotic. But put it together with the fragility of confidence – financial, business, political and public – across the continent and you have a recipe for chaos on a scale that would make the 2008 bonfire of the banks look like a relatively pleasant memory. Against this backdrop, the tasks that face the G8 are large, but they can be broken down into three: financial, economic and political. Each can be easily clarified, but they will require huge expense of capital, both financial and political, to carry out.

The financial part of resolving the euro crisis has to begin by acknowledging that the continent's crisis revolves around its banks. Spain went into the financial crisis with very modest public debt, which increased sharply as the government had to deal with a housing and banking bust. Even now, a large part of the reason why Madrid remains a candidate for a financial rescue line from the rest of Europe is because if its banking sector suffered a big collapse, the government would have to step in. In other words, the banking sector debt is de facto a contingent debt on the government's balance sheet. This is madness, but it is also highly dangerous. To sort this out, Europe needs to go in for a proper restructuring of its banking sector along the lines of that executed by Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling in 2008-09. Since crisis-stricken southern Europe does not have the resources to do this, it will have to be done on an international basis with funds contributed by other countries.

The economic part of rescuing the euro begins by halting the counter-productive austerity programmes, and agreeing a collective fiscal-stimulus package to be led by Germany. Ms Merkel can borrow at record-low interest rates from the financial market: this is money that should be used to revive the euro area. Finally, Europe's political classes need to realise that a continent that now revolves around a failing euro project, and one that demands its member nations engage in destructive austerity, is doomed to political as well as economic failure. The euro project needs to be reimagined as something altogether more positive.

• G8
• Financial crisis
• Economics
• Eurozone crisis
• European Union
• European monetary union
• Euro
• Greece

guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds






More... ]]> World News 7N3RB http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124596-The-G8-and-the-euro-make-this-one-count http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124595-The-battle-of-the-book-reviews-Lionel-Shriver?goto=newpost Sat, 19 May 2012 10:06:34 GMT Image:...
Professional critics are no more reliable than Amazon ratings, a study shows. So do we really need them?

Is the professional book reviewer an anachronism? In a recent Harvard Business School study of nonfiction reviews, assessments in mainstream media outlets like this one and amateur ratings on Amazon largely converged. Assuming we can trust the questionable verdict of mere consensus, surely we could chuck the Review section and decide what to read purely by consulting peers online?

Full disclosure: I am a professional book reviewer. Moreover, who knows whether pros and amateurs would converge in evaluations of fiction, which are notoriously subjective, and more my bailiwick.

Nevertheless, traditional reviewers still serve a function. Few Amazon punters will explore a book with the depth of an 800-word review. Supportive quotes are a virtual obligation of the form in print, since especially appraisals of style require substantiation, yet most Amazon reviewers applaud or deplore an author's prose without providing examples, and you just have to take their word for it. Granted, critics are often scorned as clubby in-fighters either championing their friends or settling old scores. On the Guardian website this week, a former reviewer for an unnamed London newspaper explained that he'd probably lost the job because he disparaged Joseph O'Neill's "odious" Netherland (certainly one of the most overrated publishing successes of all time), adding, "most book reviewers are pretentious tits".

Yet many Amazon reviewers are just as snotty, pompous and snide as the worst of the "tits" in the Times Literary Supplement. A few small-minded pros may indeed be brown-nosing or out for revenge, but most critics with a shred of integrity refuse to review authors they know. Besides, Amazon suffers from corruption as well: friends-and-family boosters can inflate a listing with flattery; rivals and personal adversaries can pump it with poison. Some review sections may be suspected of assigning books whose publishers advertise in the paper, but Amazon's emailed "recommendations" are paid for by publishers, no doubt.

As for accuracy of assessment, Amazon reviews tend to gather populist momentum, coalescing into a group-think that discourages dissenters. Able to check online for what's already out there before filing, insecure professional critics are likewise prone to go safely with the popular tide. But the best reviewers will stick their necks out, sometimes defending a misunderstood book against a deluge of denunciation, or objecting that a fashionably crowned "masterpiece" isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Certainly critics are not all created equal. American papers now pay so appallingly that some reviewers no longer feel it behoves them to actually read the book, a little oversight that they expose by making gross errors in plot summary or by wildly mischaracterising a book's whole premise. Some critics are so at odds with your tastes that you go out of your way to read what they hate.

Still, when executed responsibly, reviewing requires many hours of reading that modest fees don't begin to compensate. We're not all grinding an axe or scratching a back. We try to put an author's work in context, to advance a more constructive argument than "I didn't like it", and to make a few halfway amusing observations along the way. We delight in bringing a fine book to your attention, while sparing you a trawl through dozens of conflicting comments by folks who can't spell. When we pan a work, hoping to save you time and money, we risk making an enemy of the author for life, while Amazon trolls can forever hide behind "woof25".

Anyway, why not read the Review section and go online? Then, if both the pros and the proles turn out to be wrong, these days you've got multiple forums in which to say so. I might defend the reviewing trade, but a handful of haughty hired hands no longer having the last word on books is not a bad thing. According to that Harvard study, professional critics are swayed by awards and hype (witness the mysterious chorus of acclaim for Netherland), while regular readers are less prone to being bamboozled and more open to new writers. So between the two sources, we should all find the ultimate Holy Grail: a decent book.

• Follow Comment is free on Twitter @commentisfree

• Amazon.com
• E-commerce
• Fiction

Lionel Shriver

guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds






More... ]]> World News 7N3RB http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124595-The-battle-of-the-book-reviews-Lionel-Shriver http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124594-Should-we-be-worried-about-the-weather?goto=newpost Sat, 19 May 2012 10:06:34 GMT Image:...
Snow, hail, drought, frost, flood ... the weather is playing havoc not only with national morale, but our fragile wildlife. The ordinary vicissitudes of a British spring – or something more sinister?

Snow in Teesdale, hail in Birmingham, floods in Essex, and what felt like a touch of frost on the first morning of the first test at Lords (admittedly, rarely a balmy occasion). With a miserable May following the wettest April for a century, it must be tempting to peer up at the gloom and wonder, whatever happened to global warming? Louise Mensch did just that this week and the Tory MP soon attracted criticism after tweeting: "Wow. We really do need more windfarms on land to combat all this dreadful global warming. #rain".

There's a jolly Armstrong and Miller sketch in which Ben Miller's remark about global warming, while gazing out at the rain, precipitates a government warning that people will be jailed if they don't learn the difference between climate, a long-term trend over many years, and weather, which is what is going on outside the window right now.

Suitably re-educated, Miller gazes at the downpour and notes: "Look at this weather, eh? Still, I'm sure it will all even out statistically to illustrate a long-term warming trend."

Weather. There's a lot of it about. And it is tempting to look for deeper meaning in the very ordinary vicissitudes of spring. We may be settling into a typically rubbish British summer but the weather is about the media (where "blasts" are always "Arctic") and the Met Office (where a hurricane was infamously not on its way the night before "the Great Storm" of 1987) engaging in a ceaseless tango, the former desperate to wheedle an apocalyptic or optimistic pronouncement from the latter. Occasionally, the Met Office gets scorched, such as when they made their infamous long-term forecast of 2009 which was spun by the press into a guarantee of a "barbecue summer". (It was rained off.) Mostly, however, the forecasters stick closely to an understated script.

"After one of the warmest Marches and the wettest Aprils, now we're back to normal," says Charlie Powell, forecaster at the Met Office. "It's just British spring-time weather. It's just all normal variability and that's what we've seen to textbook standards in the last couple of months."

Hang on! What textbook features the driest March for 59 years followed by the wettest April in 101 years? At least Dr Barnaby Smith of the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology calls this spring "remarkable" for its shift from nearly two years of dry weather. "What happened in April was definitely not normal," says Smith.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that extreme weather events will become more frequent with global warming, but abnormal British weather is no such thing. For all our fickle skies, Britain (hottest day ever: 38.5C, Faversham, Kent, 2003; coldest -15.9C, Fyvie Castle, Aberdeenshire, 1995) doesn't do extremes. The IPCC is predicting an increase in the frequency and magnitude of warm temperature extremes – and, possibly, patterns of precipitation – but climate scientists admit they have no idea whether events such as floods and even cyclones and hurricanes will become more or less frequent. And a chilly spell isn't the start of an ice age. (For the whatever-happened-to-global-warming brigade, April was the fifth warmest on record worldwide; for precipitation pessimists, Britain has basked in 22 out of 24 months of below average rainfall.)

"When you talk about climate change or global warming you don't link it to a small area or a small space of time," chides Powell when I ask if our weird spring is linked to climate change. Snow in May, as the Met Office points out, is nothing special. The last time we saw it was way back in 2011, and again in 2010. On 2 May 1979, snow was reported at 342 weather stations across Britain. As the naturalist Richard Mabey writes in A Brush With Nature, "Our climatic folk memory is notoriously short and erratic, and full of gloomy mythology whose only silver lining is a vague belief in ancient Golden Summers. It is as if, living in a part of the world where the weather will always be capricious, we daren't allow ourselves the luxury of remembering particular weather instances for fear of developing foolhardy expectations."

Mabey challenges his readers to remember the summer of 1983 (the hottest July for 300 years) and the great summer of 1975 (no, not 1976, which everyone remembers because it led to drought) which started on 6 June after snowfalls on the 2nd. Mabey recalls rather more precisely than most of us because he kept a weather diary for 20 years (although he's given it up now because it got too repetitive).

Most people who might be devastated by our weird weather are surprisingly phlegmatic. Visit England must worry that their expensive ad campaign – featuring Stephen Fry, Rupert Grint and Julie Walters – will be washed out by the weather. "You don't go to the Peak District to sunbathe," says Sarah Long of Visit England. Forced by the financial squeeze into staycations back in 2009, we keep masochistically coming back for more, apparently. "We're fairly resilient," says Long. "Although it's great when the sun comes out, England is an all-weather destination."

Farmers, too, known to grumble about the weather now and again, are still thankful for the downpours after two dry winters. Drought status has been lifted in 19 areas of south-west England, the Midlands and parts of Yorkshire, although groundwater levels in much of the south and east, where hosepipe bans remain, are still low. "It's possibly surprised some people that groundwater levels have recharged as much as they have," says Smith at the Centre for Hydrology & Ecology. But there still needs to be at least a summer of average rainfall before aquifers in the south and east return to a healthier level. "The rainfall has bought us some time but we're not back to normal," says Smith. "Whatever normal is."

Worried about the drought in March, farmers now face a new challenge, according to Luke Ryder, dairy adviser for the National Farmers Union – getting out on to their waterlogged land. It is too wet for many farmers to put their cattle out, or get the first crop of silage in.

"In no way are farmers complaining," says Ryder. "We were praying to the rain gods."

The hidden cost of this miserable May, however, may be on our wildlife. "It's bloody awful," says Matthew Oates of the National Trust. "It's disastrous." The weather is hammering bird life and anything that lives in a burrow. Four thousand puffins – birds who live in burrows – have been washed out of their nests on the Farne Islands. Coots, moorhens and great-crested grebes, which make nests close to the water, have been swamped by rising waterlines, according to Dave Leech of the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO). Birds that nest on the ground or live close to wetland habitat, such as meadow pipits and reed buntings, have also fallen victim to the rains.

Secret World, the animal rescue centre in Somerset, reports a 50% increase in admissions of baby badgers, foxes and rabbits this spring, flooded out of homes. The centre has also seen an increase in admissions of adult barn owls, tawny owls and buzzards, which have become too bedraggled to fly in the wet, or seen their hunting grounds completely submerged. There haven't been many baby birds because, says founder Pauline Kidner, all the nests were abandoned or failed in the April monsoon.

As Oates points out, garden birds at least are able to have a second attempt at nest-building and could still successfully rear young. And while blocking weather systems delayed the arrival of long-distance migrants such as swifts and reed warblers by as much as two weeks, these birds should still be able to make up time and breed successfully.

May, says Leech, head of the nest records scheme at the BTO, is "a pivotal month". Unless it gets warmer and sunnier, there won't be much bird food about. "We've moved from habitat drought stress to habitat saturation, but the cold weather is really having a huge impact on the food chain," adds Oates. "It's been a disastrous time for winged insects – hoverflies, bees, moths and butterflies."

This weekend marks the start of Save Our Butterflies Week – and they need it: two of the most endangered butterflies in Britain, the Duke of Burgundy and the Pearl-Bordered Fritillary, only fly in early spring; after enjoying a revival in the glories of April 2011, it's back to square one this year. "Square one being the lowest point ever in their recorded history," says Richard Fox of Butterfly Conservation. In the rain and cold, adult butterflies cannot find mates or lay eggs to create caterpillars. And the role of most caterpillars? Bird food. "Insects are generally very heavily reliant on temperature and climate," says Fox. The lack of winged insects will have "knock-on effects for predators further up the food chain and for plants as well, which rely on pollinators such as bees."

Nevertheless, even fragile-looking winged creatures are surprisingly robust. Many butterflies will sit out a week of rain under a leaf.

Mabey was wondering about this year's swifts – a notable absence screaming around our villages and towns – but when he visited Lakenheath Fen in Suffolk this week he found thousands of this dynamic summer migrant whizzing low over the reeds. "Needs must is the rule in bad weather, not surrender," says Mabey. As Fox points out, the whole ecosystem is not going to fall apart. "Wildlife is used to weather," he says, "but the real concern is over the rarer species that have already been much reduced by human activity and can ill-afford too many bad seasons."

Butterflies are useful bellwethers; because they are so well studied, and so sensitive to the changing climate, they provide strong clues as to how other insects are adapting to weird weather. Over recent, warmer decades, many winged creatures have moved north through Europe.

But a fascinating study published in Nature Climate Change this year showed that birds and butterflies are not keeping pace with their natural climatic zone. Birds and butterflies are sensitive to small changes in average temperatures and so reside in a "climate space" where they can find food, breed and thrive. But with shifting climatic patterns, butterflies are lagging an average of 135km behind their natural climatic zone; birds are 212km behind.

Our flora and fauna may heave a collective sigh of relief if the Met Office is correct and we really are heading for a "distinctly average" 30 days. The south and east are likely to get a bit more rainfall than average, the north a bit less and the Met is really sticking its neck out to predict temperatures "around or a little bit below average" for June.

We are only human, however, and the weather gods love to mock us. Just after the Met forecast a drier than average April/May/June, the deluge began. Apart from a hosepipe ban, there is no better rain dance than the prediction of a barbecue summer. And so "distinctly average" can only be a good thing, can't it?

• Weather
• Wildlife
• Farming
• Butterflies
• Insects
• Birds
• Animals

Patrick Barkham

guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds






More... ]]> World News 7N3RB http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124594-Should-we-be-worried-about-the-weather http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124593-Facebook-IPO-an-anatomy-of-Wall-Street-overreach-Heidi-Moore?goto=newpost Sat, 19 May 2012 10:06:34 GMT Image:...
Before trading, Facebook's bankers were ready to count their profits in billions. By close, they'd had to bale out their own IPO

The day of Facebook's first day of trading as a public company brought with it a strange perspective: the highest manifestation of a social media bubble and its ugly aftermath, all in the span of a few hours. Who would have thought that Facebook's much-hyped IPO – in its bold $16bn size, the apotheosis of uncontrolled, frothy, capitalist ambition – may have been just the thing needed to bring Silicon Valley high spirits back down to earth and send ambitious techies snuggling back into their hoodies?

The day opened with crowds awaiting Facebook's debut in New York's Times Square, waving at cameras. Gleeful Facebook employees, with sugar-plum dreams of newly-minted fortunes, crowded with smiles behind CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the company's Menlo Park headquarters. The Wall Street Journal created a Zuckerberg Wealth-O-Meter ($20bn at the latest count) and the New York Times revealed the subtle-wealth secrets of 1,000 new millionaires created by the IPO.

Just to play a concise version of the parlor game that went around the stock markets, Facebook's market value at $104bn – with $3.7bn of profits – would have made Facebook worth more than: internet megastore Amazon.com; global beverage behemoth PepsiCo; petro-giant Total; BHP Billiton; and McDonald's. It was not far off the valuation of JP Morgan Chase, an international bank with $1tn in assets. Over the previous weeks, one brief glimpse of Mark Zuckerberg in a hoodie, heading to an investor meeting, launched the kind of press coverage we've hardly seen since the Beatles. JP Morgan itself, one of the company's banks, flew the Facebook company flag next to the stars and stripes of the United States, and papered its headquarters with Facebook signs.

One was tempted to caption many of the pictures, media packages and general euphoria with a single sentence: "On the sixth day, He created Facebook." It was a vision of capitalist paradise, all the richer because Zuckerberg openly disdained the money-waving bankers and investors of Wall Street. What could possibly go wrong?

The popping of this culturally focused Facebook bubble – if not the financial one – was decisive. A few hours later, the scene was decidedly more morose.

The IPO was delayed three times on the Nasdaq exchange because of technical difficulties. Facebook's stock price began a determined move downward – until its 33 banks rushed to buy up shares to avoid embarrassing the company. Zynga, the publicly traded company that makes Farmville and contributes 12% of Facebook revenues, took the aftershocks from Facebook's struggle strongly: its stock fell so fast that its trading was halted. Financial television pundits turned tail and suddenly cautioned against putting faith in an irrational frenzy about Facebook.

The bubble giveth, and the bubble taketh away. What brought Facebook's prospects down – at least, on its first day of trading – was the simple fact that the relationship between a company's stock price and its true value has always been an uneasy one. It is more so for this strange breed of social media leaders – Facebook, LinkedIn, Groupon, Zynga – which appear in front of millions of people but have relatively little in revenue to show for it.

Facebook, as the leading social media company of our time, tested the limits of whether investors are willing to pay anything to participate in the popularity of social media – the way they filed like lemmings to invest in hapless dotcoms like Pets.com in the late 1990s. With Facebook as their avatar, other social media companies have sought high valuations: Instagram recently sold for $1bn, and the most recent estimate on the scrapbooking site Pinterest was $1.5bn.

What happened was a decisive statement. Wall Street is trying to capitalize on the financial hype by sending out companies like Facebook, LinkedIn, Zynga and Groupon public before they are mature enough to sustain the pressure of being publicly-owned companies. But what Wall Street wants and what Wall Street gets, these days, are two very different things.

Regular investors – just normal Americans – bought 20% of the Facebook IPO. They are usually known derisively as the "dumb money". They have wised up a bit, perhaps, in the decade since the dotcom bubble. Most of the hype, and the expectation of vast riches, came from Wall Street bankers and professional investors – another sign, perhaps, that the finance industry is trapped in its own bubble, out of touch with American sentiment.

For Facebook, the first day of trading was mildly embarrassing – no big "pop". It closed on the day moving down: the stock closed at $38, the exact prior price set by the underwriters. As a metaphor, this was irresistible: after all the excitement, talk, euphoria and disappointment, Facebook ended the day right where it started.

• Facebook
• IPOs
• US economy
• Media business
• Social media
• Technology sector
• United States
• Mark Zuckerberg
• Banking

Heidi Moore

guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds






More... ]]> World News 7N3RB http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124593-Facebook-IPO-an-anatomy-of-Wall-Street-overreach-Heidi-Moore http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124592-Facebook-narrowly-avoids-dip-below-starting-price-in-mixed-first-day-of-IPO?goto=newpost Sat, 19 May 2012 10:06:34 GMT Image:...
Social network giant ends day at $38.23 (£24), up just 0.61% from its starting price after share sale got off to a messy start

Facebook's first day as a public company ended with the company narrowly avoiding the embarrassment of its stock dipping below the $38 (£24) starting price, in one of the most frenzied share sales in history.

Shares in the social network giant ended the day at $38.23, up 0.61%, having soared 11% earlier in the day. A record 566m shares traded hands as the company joined the Nasdaq stock market where it is now valued at $104bn, more than the combined worth of Goldman Sachs and Nike.

Mark Zuckerberg, the company's 28-year-old founder and Facebook's largest shareholder, saw the value of his holding reach $20.4bn by the time the market closed.

The sale got off to a messy and inauspicious start. Early trading was delayed until 11.30am as the exchange systems seemed unable to cope with the scale of the initial public offering (IPO) and failed to send electronic reports back to traders and firms to confirm that shares had been bought or sold. After the market closed, CNBC reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission was looking at the Nasdaq trading problems.

When trading eventually did start, more than 82m shares were traded in the first 30 seconds. The share price soared 11% before quickly collapsing to close to the $38 offer price.

Dealers speculated that Facebook's army of bankers had stepped in to stop the shares falling below $38, a move that would have landed the social network with a public relations disaster on its first day as a public company.

Sam Hamadeh, founder of the analyst PrivCo, watched the day unfold at the Nasdaq exchange. "It was stunning," he said. "I have not seen anything like it in 20 years of watching this market."

He calculates that the banks who underwrote the share sale stepped in and bought $300m worth of shares to stop Facebook dipping below $38, a move that would have marked Facebook as a "busted IPO".

"It doesn't matter so much to Facebook, they raised their money but
it's not a great start," said Hamadeh, who said he believed Facebook was worth $24-$25 a share. "And that's being generous."

Before the shares started trading the estimated price reached $45, triggering a wave of sell offs that Nasdaq could not handle, said Hamadeh. Nasdaq did not return calls for comment. He predicts that the shares will fall further next week. "The banks can't support this thing forever," he said.

For now the share price is not Zuckerberg's primary concern. "Of course the money means something to him," said David Kirkpatrick, author of the Facebook Effect. "But he's not doing it just for the money and he assumes that rather than focus on the money, he should focus on making sure Facebook does well. He is highly analytical in everything he does, extremely disciplined. He is not going to be watching that stock price every day, I can tell you that."

Facebook's stock market debut had begun with Zuckerberg - wearing his trademark navy blue hooded top - remotely ringing the opening bell for the New York-based stock exchange from outside his California headquarters as staff cheered him on. Forbes calculated that as he did so, he was the world's 23rd richest man – two places above Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

However, the riches generated by Facebook went wider. At $38 a share Facebook created 88 people with fortunes of over $30m, according to Wealth-X, an analyst that monitors high net worth individuals. If the price reaches $43, there will be 265 Facebook millionaires worth more than $30m.

The sale reaped enormous rewards for Facebook's co-founders and early backers. Co-founder Dustin Moscovitz is now worth over $5bn. Elevation Partners, an investment firm that counts U2 singer Bono among its partners, holds shares worth over $1.6bn.

Facebook's IPO is the most hotly anticipated share sale since Google's in 2004. Google's stock started trading at $85 and ended the day at $100.34. Google's shares now sell for over $620.

As with the Google IPO, there has been a lot of scepticism about Facebook's ability to turn its phenomenal number of users into a business able to support a $100bn-plus valuation. Facebook's revenues were $3.7bn last year. Goldman Sachs, the investment bank, had revenues of close to $29bn and is valued at half Facebook's current value.

The social network now has over 900 million people on its service and will soon top a billion. For its fans, Facebook is the defining company of the 21st century. "His impact on the world will be as least as big as Bill Gates and probably already has been," said Kirkpatrick.

Kirkpatrick has spent many hours with Zuckerberg writing the only authorised history of the company. He said Zuckerberg had a "laser focus" on business and planned to spend Friday working rather than watching the share price.

"He really doesn't believe in paying attention to that stuff. He's much more focussed on product development, on penetration of the service around the world," said Kirkpatrick.

The sale comes amid what some are calling a new bubble in tech companies. Facebook's IPO follows a mixed set of share sales from other social media firms including Groupon, the online coupon company, and Zynga, the games firm behind Words With Friends and Draw Something.

Facebook itself has driven up the bubble, according to some, by spending $1bn on Instagram, a profitless photo-sharing application.

Earlier this week Pinterest, a social site that lets people "pin" pictures and content to create collections of interest, raised $100m at a price that valued the company at $1bn.

"There is a frenzy going on. I think this is a bubble," said Alan Patrick, co-founder of technology consultancy Broadsight. "Short term I can see that Facebook can be valued at $100bn on sentiment. People believe that it is going to make a lot of money. But sentiment doesn't last."

He said Facebook had yet to prove that it could make money on mobile devices, the fastest growing way in which people access Facebook.

However, the share sale comes in a week when General Motors announced it was dropping its own Facebook ads and said they were not working. GM is one of the world's largest advertisers and spent $1.83bn on US ads last year, according to Kantar Media, an ad-tracking firm.

Nigel Morris, chief executive of ad giant Aegis Media Americas, said: "We handle a number of clients who are advertising very successfully on Facebook. For others we are evaluating the right approach. The issue for Facebook is not whether revenues will grow, it's whether they will grow fast enough to justify this valuation."

Whatever the future for Facebook, its founders and early investors were certainly celebrating. Co-founder Eduardo Saverin, who is now worth over $2.7bn, congratulated Zuckerberg on his Facebook page: "Congrats to everyone involved in the project from day one till today, and I especially wanted to congratulate Mark Zukerberg (sic) on keeping tremendous stead-fast (sic) focus, however hard that was, on making the world a more open and connected place."

• Facebook
• Nasdaq
• United States
• Social media
• IPOs
• Internet
• Internet IPOs
• Stock markets

Dominic Rushe

guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds






More... ]]> World News 7N3RB http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124592-Facebook-narrowly-avoids-dip-below-starting-price-in-mixed-first-day-of-IPO http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124591-Girls-live-recap-season-one-episode-six?goto=newpost Sat, 19 May 2012 10:06:34 GMT Image:...
Join AV club's Todd VanDerWerff and Irin Carmon from Salon for a live recap of the latest episode of the HBO show

From the preview clips of episode six, it looks like we're in for a change. Girls has Hannah heading home, travelling far beyond the cultural confines of Manhattan and into the depths of the Wolverine state: Michigan. There, it seems, Hannah confronts how much has changed since she left and finds comfort in making something old new again.

In honor of HBO's diversion from the norm, and in keeping with the episode's theme of change, we're adding a curveball to our weekly recaps: a man.

That's right, ladies Todd VanDerWerff is joining our weekly #girlschat (which up until now has been exclusively female). Quite frankly, a lot of Girls is about boys, and it's time we brought one of them into the fold (not to mention that Todd's weekly recaps on the AV Club are brilliant).

Joining Todd is the fantastic Irin Carmon from Salon. Irin is a journalist and commenter who often writes about culture and politics. She's also got a monthly gig at Tablet magazine.

Monday's chat is sure to be a treat, so join us at 2pm ET (11am PT) for a one hour live chat on Girls, season one, episode six.

• Girls
• Television
• US television
• Sex
• Relationships
• United States

Ruth Spencer

guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds






More... ]]> World News 7N3RB http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124591-Girls-live-recap-season-one-episode-six http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124590-The-Jamaicanisation-of-the-eurozone-Mark-Weisbrot?goto=newpost Sat, 19 May 2012 10:06:34 GMT Image:...
By imposing budget cuts and austerity, the ECB is condemning countries like Greece and Spain to an economic twilight zone

Jamaica, an English-speaking Caribbean island nation of 2.9 million people, may seem worlds away from Europe. The country's income per person of $9,000 ranks it 88th in the world, as compared to the eurozone countries, which are three or four times richer. But they face a common problem, and although none of the eurozone countries is likely to become as poor as Jamaica is today, they could easily – going forward – mimic the dismal economic performance that Jamaica has seen over the past 20 years.

Jamaica has the world's highest public debt burden: interest payments on the government's debt account for 10% of the country's national income. (For comparison, Greece – with the worst debt burden in Europe – is paying 6.8% of GDP in interest.) This leaves little room for public investment in infrastructure, or improving education or healthcare. Partly as a result of this debt trap, Jamaica's income per person has grown by just 0.7% annually over the past 20 years.

Two years ago, Jamaica reached an agreement with its creditors, brokered by the IMF, that restructured its debt. Interest payments were lowered, and some principal payments were pushed forward. But the debt burden remained unsustainable. The IMF now projects that Jamaica's debt will reach 153% of GDP in just three years.

Sound familiar? That is what happened to Greece just four months ago. The Greek government reached an agreement with the European authorities (the "Troika" of the European Central Bank or ECB, the European Commission, and the IMF) that reduced its debt. Unlike in Jamaica, the private investors holding Greek debt took a "haircut", losing about half of the principal.

But still, it wasn't enough. Before the ink was dry on the deal, an IMF estimate of a "pessimistic scenario" going forward showed Greek debt reaching more than 160% of GDP by 2020. Since the IMF's projections for Greece over the past few years have proved enormously over-optimistic, and with Europe sliding further into recession, the pessimistic scenario is the more likely one. This means that even if Greek voters end up with a government that accepts the agreement – by no means guaranteed – it is likely that their economy will limp along from one crisis to the next until there is another restructuring, or a chaotic default.

In both Greece and Jamaica, the problem is not just the debt itself; even more, it is the policies that the creditors have attached to further lending. In Greece, this is extreme: the Troika insisted on Greece cutting 8.6% of GDP from its fiscal deficit over the past two years – the equivalent of the United States wiping out its entire federal budget deficit of $1.3tn. Naturally, the economy went into a tailspin. In Jamaica also, the IMF attached conditions during the 2008-2009 economic crisis that worsened the country's downturn.

Europe's problem with harmful policies attached to official lending is not limited to Greece. Dow Jones' recent headline tells the sad story of Portugal in a sentence: "EU: Portugal Will Need More Austerity To Meet Deficit Targets." Yes, the European Commission wants Portugal to make even bigger budget cuts because the ones they already made have shrunk the economy so much that they won't make their target deficit-to-GDP ratio. The economy is projected to shrink by a painful 3.3% this year, and official unemployment has risen from 12.9% last year, to 15.3% this. Ireland is in recession, yet it, too, is engaging in big budget tightening.

Spain hasn't yet had to borrow from the Troika, but has followed the same policies. With more than half of its youth languishing in unemployment, Spain's fiscal tightening – according to the government's projections – will carve 2.6% out of its economic growth this year.

Of course, there are many important differences between the situation of the eurozone countries and Jamaica, and among the eurozone countries themselves. Jamaica needs debt cancellation; some of the eurozone countries in trouble – for example, Spain – would have a sustainable debt burden if the ECB would simply intervene in the sovereign bond markets and guarantee a low interest rate on their bonds. And the ECB, as the issuer of a hard currency in a monetary area with no serious inflationary threat, has a lot of room to do whatever is necessary to make sure that all of the eurozone countries have low borrowing costs and therefore sustainable debt.

But the ECB has refused to use its powers to put an end to the sovereign debt crisis, preferring instead – hand-in-hand with the rest of the Troika – to exploit it in order to force unpopular political changes in eurozone countries, especially the weaker ones. In so doing, they are condemning these countries to the long-term stagnation of high unemployment and slow growth that Jamaica has suffered for the past two decades. Although the human costs are much higher in a developing country such as Jamaica, this still entails a huge amount of unnecessary suffering on both sides of the ocean.

• Eurozone crisis
• Jamaica
• Debt relief
• Greece
• IMF
• Economics
• European Central Bank
• European Union

Mark Weisbrot

guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds






More... ]]> World News 7N3RB http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124590-The-Jamaicanisation-of-the-eurozone-Mark-Weisbrot http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124589-Unthinkable-No-more-second-world-war-memorials?goto=newpost Sat, 19 May 2012 10:06:34 GMT Image:...
2012 is far too late to be building memorials to those involved in a war that ended nearly 70 years ago

This summer another second world war memorial, this time to Bomber Command, will be unveiled in central London. Even if this were an uncontentious subject of scintillating design, 2012 is far too late to be building memorials to those involved in a war that ended nearly 70 years ago. Honouring the courage of the few who fought and the stoicism of those left behind had its place in post-war reconstruction, and remains important. But the record is being fashioned into something quite different. To understand the ambition of the memorialisers, watch the film that helped raise the £5m to build and maintain the monument: the war is reduced to being another chapter in Our Island Story, England alone, the last bastion of freedom. It is becoming Britain's foundation myth, and the way it is remembered is as important as the fact of remembrance. The aggrandising of conflict misrepresents and diminishes the truth. The allied forces comprised many brave souls from the Antipodes, the Indian subcontinent and the West Indies – and across the globe. It is no dishonour to remember that most people fought because they were conscripted, nor that many in Britain went to the front with the hope of rebuilding their country as a fairer society. The nature of that new nation was the subject of detailed educational leaflets from the army bureau of current affairs, and its legitimisation came in the Labour landslide. Their memorial, surely, is the NHS, social welfare and free education.

• Second world war

guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds






More... ]]> World News 7N3RB http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124589-Unthinkable-No-more-second-world-war-memorials http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124588-Facebook-is-now-priced-for-perfection-Brent-Hoberman?goto=newpost Sat, 19 May 2012 10:06:34 GMT Image:...
The weight of the world is now on Zuckerberg's shoulders. As co-founder of Lastminute.com, I can, in a small way, empathise

I can't claim to have had anything like the success of Mark Zuckerberg, but as Facebook floated on the Nasdaq stock exchange today, I could empathise in a very small way with what its founder must be feeling. In March 2000, following a period if intense media interest, my own company, Lastminute.com, went public, and was priced the day Nasdaq peaked, at £571m. It increased its price during an accelerated road show by more than any other European initial public offering (IPO). The thinking then was technology IPOs were like Giffin goods – the more expensive, the more demand.

Facebook is at a different stage. Back then, the internet had very few profitable giants. We were loss-making and had the revenues, as one analyst wisely pointed out, of a small pub. Facebook is very profitable, making $1bn last year, and has jaw-dropping reach. Its execution has been almost flawless (excluding the occasional privacy lapse and mobile) and it is now valued at more than $100bn – 100 times greater than our business.

Yet there are superficial similarities. Both had young founder chief executives. I was 31 when Lastminute.com went public (old by today's standards: my co-founder Martha Lane Fox was 28). I had very little real idea of what to expect from investors and of managing large teams and crazy growth. Zuckerberg has had eight years to build a world-class, experienced team around him. Facebook has the benefit of the pioneers that have gone before it, they have lowered the costs of web technology dramatically and given a new generation digital management experience.

Zuckerberg is in the mould of Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Steve Jobs of Apple, and Google's Larry Page – an idealistic, passionate, driven, impatient, obstinate, obsessive CEO, who can drive a team to long-term rather than short-term goals. He will have 57% voting control – Martha and I had no control, and were never advised about the possibilities of such things as "dual-class voting stock".

But, like Facebook, our business was a hot stock that was chased up by retail investors. We saw how this creates real stress. People bought into our business at a high valuation and believed it could only go one way. Investors see this as free money, and if it isn't (in our case the bubble burst and the stock went down 95%, until we recovered) then sentiment changes fast. In such situations, motivation has to come from the team around you, from growth and the love of customers for your product – you cannot depend on support from critical investors and an increasingly cynical media.

Despite the massive boost to his personal wealth, which is now valued at $25bn, there are things Zuckerberg will hate about going public: the results, saying the same thing over and over again to investors when he would rather be driving the business; the market sentiment that will make his stock a hedge fund plaything. He will hate being asked about the share price, as if he controlled that too. He will hate people who want him to focus on short-term profits as opposed to his long-term mission. He will probably hate having to worry about how to invest his money, as that doesn't seem to drive him except as a way of keeping the score.

Investors, in turn, should look for Zuckerberg to keep his confidence – not arrogance. For the valuation to double over five years (the sort of return investors need to believe in) they will want him focused. He will need to demonstrate that with his fantastic war chest and user base he can take the business into mobile phones, payments, identity, big data analytics, social commerce … In a similar way the lastminute.com IPO valuation was based on a belief that the business was not about selling low-margin cheap flights but would continue its expansion into a greater share of customers' leisure spend across different devices and into different nations.

The night we went public and raised £120m, Martha and I were very subdued. It felt as if we had the weight of the world, and our employees, on our shoulders, and that the company was priced for perfection. That was massive pressure. However, now I look at Zuckerberg and see someone who really does have the weight of the world on his shoulders, is only 28, and doesn't have a proper business partner.

I had hoped Facebook would resist the temptation that we also felt, to raise the price too much. In our case I'm not sure the added pressure was worth it, and in theirs they really don't need the extra money. I suspect Zuckerberg will feel that pressure, that his world is surreal. But he will be happy that he has been given this chance to continue to change the world – and follow his passion. And that his creation's future is assured for some time to come.

• Facebook
• Internet
• Mark Zuckerberg
• Social networking
• Nasdaq
• Stock markets
• United States

Brent Hoberman

guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds






More... ]]> World News 7N3RB http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124588-Facebook-is-now-priced-for-perfection-Brent-Hoberman http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124587-Euro-crisis-Is-Cyprus-next-for-the-Grexit?goto=newpost Sat, 19 May 2012 10:06:34 GMT Image:...
Cyprus, with its out-sized banking sector equal to 835% its GDP, could be the next knock-on from the Greek euro crisis

One of the mysteries of the Greek financial crisis is that there are any deposits left in the stricken country's domestic banks. Since 2009, it's estimated that €2-€3bn has been withdrawn from Greek banks every month. The pace has picked up markedly in recent days; on Monday alone €700m was taken out of the banks, and the Greek president told reporters: "The strength of banks is very weak right now."

A friend recently returned from a 600km trek across the countryside outside of Athens. Many roadside shops and restaurants were abandoned or locked. Locals were not willing to accept cards. Everything had to be in cash, and she sensed a fear that money tied up in the banking system would be lost should it go into meltdown.

Yet according to Greece's central bank, total deposits held by domestic residents and companies stood at €165.36bn in March. Given the likely sequence of events should Greece leave the euro – accounts frozen, converted into new drachmas and then devalued by around half – it's extraordinary there is any money on deposit at all.

I can add little to the pundits speculating whether there will be a "Grexit". But the lack of focus on Cyprus is surprising, especially given the 80,000 Brits living there. It is, of course, an independent country with its own central bank. A blog for British residents I read this week tried to calm fears about a knock-on from Greece, claiming the island has a robust deposit protection scheme. So did Iceland. Cyprus's out-sized banking sector is equal to 835% of the island's GDP, says the FT.

More worryingly, the operations of the Cypriot banks in Greece alone are equal to 130% of Cypriot GDP. Some claim the island has benefited from flows out of Greece. But when one of the country's leading banks this week required a £2bn cash injection, it doesn't ring true. Economists who talk about contagion from Greece always point to Spain and Portugal. But surely it will be Cyprus next? And if the British in Cyprus have sense they won't rely on articles extolling the island's deposit protection scheme – although savers here with the Bank of Cyprus (UK) are covered by Britain's compensation scheme.

• Consumer affairs
• Cyprus
• Eurozone crisis
• Euro
• Financial crisis
• European monetary union

Patrick Collinson

guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds






More... ]]> World News 7N3RB http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124587-Euro-crisis-Is-Cyprus-next-for-the-Grexit http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124586-The-eurozone-crisis-five-ways-it-affects-you?goto=newpost Sat, 19 May 2012 10:06:34 GMT Image:...
From pensions and savings to holidays, we look at how the latest market turmoil will impact on your finances

1 Your pension

If you are retiring this year Greece has been very, very, bad news for you. There is an ongoing slow-motion collapse in annuity rates, and this week it got a little worse. When a man aged 65 swaps £100,000 in his pension pot for an annuity – a regular monthly income for the rest of his life – the sum will be just £6,000 a year. That compares with the £14,000 a year that someone retiring in 1990 earned from a savings pot of £100,000. If the pensioners wants to build in 3% a year cost-of-living increases into the annuity, the rate he'll get for that £100,000 will be a paltry £4,150 a year.

But why blame Greece? Because the surprise status of the UK as a "safe haven" for international money during the crisis has pushed the interest rate on government bonds (known as gilts) to historic lows – and the price of gilts has a strong influence on the price of annuities.

This week the return on 10-year bond yields, which reflect the cost of borrowing by the government, fell to 1.87% as investors fearful of the enveloping euro crisis reduced their lending to Spain and Italy in favour of the UK, Germany, the US and Japan. The fall in gilt yields this week beat the previous low of 1.92% in January, and is the lowest level since Bank of England records started in 1703.

This week Canada Life cut annuity rates, and others are expected to follow, says Billy Burrows of Better Retirement Group. "It's another nail in the coffin for UK savers. The retired have been paying the price for the banking crisis through lower savings rates, now people reaching retirement are paying the price for Greece."

What's more, the outlook for men is much worse for women – because on 22 December an EU directive will force pension companies to equalise annuity rates between males and females. Men, who suffer shorter longevity than women, receive better annuities as a result, but after 22 December these will be cut, while those for women will be increased.

The options for those approaching retirement are grim; work for longer and defer retirement (and if you get ill in the meantime, there's the silver lining of better rates as the insurer assumes you'll die earlier) or buy a temporary annuity. These can be bought for a fixed period, usually with a minimum of five years and a maximum of the period until age 75 is reached. But as Gemma Goodman of annuity brokers Alexander Forbes says, there is no guarantee it'll be better value; at age 75 annuity rates may be even lower.

A PricewaterhouseCoopers report this week suggested that babies born today may have to work until 77 before they qualify for a state pension. Given the ever-shrinking value of annuities, it may be worth younger adults considering alternative ways of saving other than a pension – such as Isas or property – where you do not have to buy an annuity at retirement.

2 Your investments

The stock market continues to fall heavily in response to the Greek crisis, with speculators assuming a disorderly default, and its hit on the banks could lop as much as 5% off the GDP of Europe. The FTSE has lost 1,090 of its value since it hit a high of 5,965 as recently as 16 March, wiping £190bn off the value of the UK's biggest companies, much of it still held in pension funds.

Investors who have stock market-based Isas invested in Europe have fared a lot worse. Over the past year some giant funds have lost as much as a quarter of their investors' money. Invesco Perpetual European Equity, a £1bn fund, is down 26%, while the £200m Artemis European Growth fund is down 25.8%. Even over five years the average fund invested in Europe has managed to lose 16.5%, with some down as much as 40%.

There have been few safe havens from the Greek crisis. Gilts have had, once again, a good crisis. The average UK gilts fund is up 4.8% over the past three months, and investors who have held for the past five years are enjoying gains of 58%. Most corporate bond funds have also held their heads above water, but almost everything else has been in negative territory. Interestingly, China has been worst, performing even more poorly than mainland Europe. Analysts say that when investors become risk-averse money pours back into safer territories, leaving emerging markets exposed.

But gold has been the odd man out during the latest phase of the Greek tragedy. Its price this week dropped to about $1,530 an ounce, its lowest level for nearly nine months, and 20% below its $1,895 high in early September 2011. Investors have preferred the safety of US dollars and US treasury bonds to the traditional safe harbour of gold. Some people also argue that in times of extreme economic stress investors sell gold to get their hands on cash.

The good news is that virtually all commodities have fallen back in price in recent months, although that has as much to do with softening of the Chinese economy as problems in Europe. Since September wheat is down from $8 a bushel to $6, coffee is down from $2.80 to $1.77 a pound, and sugar has fallen from $850 a tonne to $570. Whether we'll see these falls reflected at Sainsbury's or Tesco is another matter. Meanwhile, copper thefts from Britain's railways should become less attractive; the metal is down in price from $9,600 a tonne last July to $7,700 this week.

3 Your savings and mortgage


Relief for savers suffering from paltry returns on their building society accounts remains as far away as ever. The latest fall in gilt yields brought by the Greek crisis will help keep interest rates in Britain low for longer than anyone imagined back in 2009 when Bank of England base rate fell to an historic low of 0.5%.

Savers who want a better return on their cash may have to start considering riskier alternatives – such as "retail bonds" from the likes of Tesco, which, although not offering any guarantees under the government's compensation scheme, pay interest of 5%-8% a year.

There's better news for mortgage holders, though – except those on pricey long-term fixes. Last week the latest meeting of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee kept interest rates on hold once again, and economists are virtually united in forecasting near-zero rates through to 2014. "Interest rates seem set to remain at their current level of 0.5% until at least late 2013 and very possibly into 2014. Interest rates are clearly not going to be raised for some considerable time to come given the fragility of the economy and the need to counter extended tight fiscal policy," said Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight.

The outlook suggests that those on existing tracker mortgages or low-standard variable rates – such as Nationwide's 2.5% base mortgage rate – should cling on for as long as possible. For new buyers the best tracker rates are on offer from First Direct, which has a mortgage that tracks the Bank's base rate plus 2.39% for life, giving a rate of 2.89% for now. However, it is only available to those able to put down a deposit of at least 35%, and comes with an arrangement fee of £499. If you can only afford a 15% deposit HSBC's tracker at 3.99% is top of the table. It has no arrangement fees.

4 Your car

The problems in Greece are at least providing some relief to motorists, with fears of slowing global economic growth pushing the oil price down substantially over the past six weeks. In mid-March Brent crude was selling for $125 a barrel, but this week it fell to a six-month low of $108 amid renewed concerns that a breakup of the euro would send economic shockwaves around the world.

The fall has sparked a price war at the supermarket petrol pumps, with Asda cutting its prices four times over the past four weeks. On Tuesday this week Morrisons cut its price to 132.9p for unleaded and 137.9p for diesel. Then on Wednesday Asda undercut Morrisons, offering unleaded for 0.2p less at 132.7p. The price reductions mean the cost of unleaded is now 8p below its March peak.

Asda said it "always aims to lead the way when we get the chance to cut prices because of a drop in the global cost of oil," and took a swipe at rival supermarkets, which vary their petrol prices around the country. "Unlike other retailers we do everything we can to reduce prices for all of our customers wherever they live. Research taken from PetrolPrices.com shows some retailers get away with charging their customers more for fuel – as much as 8p a litre more – in towns without an Asda nearby."

According to PetrolPrices.com the average price for a litre of unleaded in the UK is 138.1p, but some petrol forecourts are charging as much as 155p a litre.

However, prices will nudge back up again in August with the 3p rise in duty announced in the budget.

5 Your holiday

Most holidaymakers heading to France, Spain or Italy will benefit from the euro's slide against sterling, falling to €1.25 this week and with some currency experts forecasting further declines to €1.30. But what if you are heading for a fortnight on a sunny beach on a Greek island, only to find that the country has crashed out of the eurozone? Will your holiday be at risk? Bob Atkinson of travelsupermarket.com says: "The issue will be around how your tour operator interacts with the hoteliers in Greece, and what the terms of their contracts say. They should all have plans in place that will allow you to continue with your holiday.

But what if the hotelier has gone bust? "If you have booked an Atol-covered package your tour operator is obliged to organise alternative accommodation, or if there is no immediate alternative, a holiday on a different date or a full refund.

"If you have booked independently, you may still be covered provided you paid by credit card and the deposit was £100 or more, you paid by Visa or MasterCard debit card (and can do a charge-back), or have travel insurance which includes end-supplier failure in its cover," says Atkinson.

He recommends that Greek-bound travellers hold off buying euros until the last minute. "Unless the whole banking system goes into meltdown you are also likely to be able to use credit and debit cards, although it's impossible to say which currency your transactions will be made in until it actually happens."

Brits with holiday homes in Greece, and an account at a local bank, would be wise to swap their euros for sterling. That probably also applies to ex-pats in Cyprus, which is independent of Greece but whose banking system is closely entwined with the country.

In the worst case (and still highly unlikely) scenario – contagion from a Greek collapse across to other Mediterranean countries such as Spain and Portugal – British retirees abroad will want to make sure they have very little of their assets deposited in local banks.

• Family finances
• Pensions
• Savings
• Mortgages
• Isas
• Banks and building societies
• Investments
• Foreign currency
• Eurozone crisis
• Euro
• Euro

Patrick Collinson

guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds






More... ]]> World News 7N3RB http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124586-The-eurozone-crisis-five-ways-it-affects-you http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124585-Brooklyn-DA-sets-up-taskforce-to-tackle-intimidation-of-Orthodox-abuse-victims?goto=newpost Sat, 19 May 2012 10:06:34 GMT Image:...
Charles Hynes acts as critics accuse him of failing to protect victims and their families and of protecting rabbinical leaders

The Brooklyn district attorney has set up a taskforce to combat the intimidation of child sexual abuse victims in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community amid growing criticism of his handling of the issue.

In an interview on local New York television channel NY1, Charles Hynes said a cross-departmental team would meet next week to discuss how to "break down this wall of intimidation."

Campaigners have accused Hynes of failing to protect victims and their families after they report abuse to the secular authorities, and of being unwilling to challenge rabbinical leaders who want to cover up abuse allegations.

This week the Guardian detailed how the friends and family of an alleged victim had been repeatedly threatened and harassed by supporters of the accused.

The DA's move follows a suggestion by former New York City mayor Ed Koch that if Hynes fails to tackle the problem, the governor should intervene. In an op-ed first posted on Newsmax on Monday, Koch also called on Hynes to end his secrecy policy towards the ultra-Orthodox community. Hynes refuses to release the names of the now 97 individuals he says have been arrested through his Kol Tzedek programme, set up to address sexual abuse in the Orthodox*community.

Koch wrote: "At this point, unless District Attorney Hynes announces that he will release the names of all defendants, including those of ultra orthodox Jews charged with child abuse — sexual or otherwise — and will pursue criminally anyone who engages in obstruction of justice, advising someone not to assist the police in their investigation of a child abuse incident, the governor should supersede him in these cases and appoint a special prosecutor to handle them." *

Speaking on Friday after Hynes's announcement, Koch said he wanted to find a way to help the district attorney. "I believe that Hynes is an honourable man who wants to do the right thing. He's feeling a lot of heat, quite rightly, and therefore I expect him to move expeditiously," Koch said.

Koch said he would be checking in every couple of months to monitor Hynes's progress. "I'm not his boss, I'm not a judge but I will be checking in regularly to find out how far it's gone," he said.

Koch said he was not interested in an adversarial relationship, but if he feels the DA is not taking adequate steps, he will take his concerns to New York's Governor Cuomo.

The idea for a taskforce emerged during an email exchange between the pair.

Victor Vieth, executive director of the National Child Protection Training Center, said he would welcome the opportunity to recommend experts to serve on Hynes's taskforce. "It is crucial that they include folks with a lot of experience handling these sorts of cases," Vieth said.

There are many child protection groups and experts who have experience working with similar communities, he said, such as the Boys Scouts of America, the Catholic Church, Penn State University, the US military and other tight-knit religious and immigrant communities.

Speaking to interviewer Errol Louis on NY1 last night, Hynes said the level of intimidation in the Orthodox Jewish community was greater than in organised crime, and that he was determined to clamp down on witness intimidation: "If someone doesn't want to report an abuse because of fear, how much luck am I going to have having them testify as to intimidation? So we've had a number of cases where we've asked victims to put a wire on and have a conversation with a religious leader and it has not worked out.

"The real problem is for people to understand [is that] I'm dealing with a community, some of who are absolutely hellbent on never allowing a victim to get the kind of justice we have available for them.* And I won't tolerate it in Brooklyn."

Hynes also denied that he was allowing rabbis to decide which cases should be reported to the authorities. "I never gave them the opportunity to look at sex cases first … It was never a suggestion by me that rabbis should filter cases. In fact I told [Rabbi David] Zwiebel, it's a very dangerous ground to be involved in. Because if a rabbi decides that he's going to tell someone not to go to secular authorities he could end up in handcuffs."

The DA recently turned down freedom of information law requests from the Guardian and a number of other papers for information about prosecutions through Kol Tzedek. He cited civil rights law that protects the identity of victims. But*on NY1 last night he said that Susan Edelman, a reporter on the New York Post, had been to his office that afternoon to go through the 97 arrests.

The DA's spokesperson did not respond to a request for information.

• Orthodox sex abuse scandal
• New York
• United States

Zoë Blackler

guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds






More... ]]> World News 7N3RB http://filehoard.com/showthread.php/124585-Brooklyn-DA-sets-up-taskforce-to-tackle-intimidation-of-Orthodox-abuse-victims